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azuli wonder if video games will go the way of music --- performed chiefly by professionals, the primary way to interact with video games is to watch other people play them, that anyone who devotes time to playing a game for fun will be seen as having failed to monetize it, etc
i very much don't want it to go like that, but that is more or less the world we live in wrt music, and art in general, and i would have much preferred to grow up in a society where making music and making art were part of the social fabric
Philippa Cowderoy@typeswitch Even at a remove, I was v.lucky to have the 90s demo scene to get me started musically
Len0w0ThinkBad@typeswitch for me to a certain extent it's already gone that way. I find more enjoyment from watching an edited letsplay of a lot of games than I do from actually playing them.
Nelson Lopez@typeswitch But also the surge of random people just playing a game for fun and noticing that they also want to make them, the tools being more accessible than ever, perhaps the games won't be very good but there will be people out there just making super magical and original stuff for themselves and their niche
still, i still fear the concept of monetization here because not being able to sell your life's work is devastating to some
... i guess all of this is already happening
@nelson well, in my analogy, making a game is like composing a piece of music, playing the game is like performing that musical composition, and watching (a recording of) someone play the game is like listening to (a recording of) that musical performance.
the thing i was worried about is not that there will be fewer people who want to make games, but that there will be fewer people who want to play them.
@typeswitch yeah i know i just wanted to portray the fact that there’s also a surge on people aiming to make games
@nelson in many ways this is also true in music -- the tools for music composition are more available than ever, there have never been more composers than there are today. but music composition is no longer a mass product, only recordings, so most are music producers instead.
it would be like if instead of making video games, people who want a bigger audience just produce videos directly instead . . . uh oh
Danni (Forever Loud)@typeswitch I would say that the one counter force to your scenario is the barrier to entry skill wise.
Now to note, I'm not arguing one requires more or less skill, just that it's a different.
Like with an instrument you spend years to lean how to fine tune your use of that instrument. After doing so you can theoretically pick up any piece of music and play it, but the layman can't.
With video games the skill of operation is generally low. The skill generally lies in dexterity, but like being good at one game doesn't necessarily transmit to another.
That low entry bar for physical skill to me makes the analogy more like chess than art, which chess has tiers of play, but an average person can play chess with no practice.
Also to note, I understand my point does kind of gloss over disability, but I think the handling of that is the same in either case. Just wanted to acknowledge there are complications in there I'm simplifying out.
@typeswitch I will say that no matter what, your hypothetical is a really interesting thought. I had never considered that angle before